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Repairing a Partially Broken GoPro Frame

GoPro Frames are incredibly tough, but given the abuse they’re put through, sometimes things break. In my case, I was taking my GoPro tripod mount off of my tripod mount, when I noticed that one of the polycarbonate pivots was broken. I was quite happy to have found this before I lost my camera, but a repair was in order.

To frame everything up to glue the pivot in place, I first figured out how the broken piece would normally fit. I then added a small amount of Gorilla Glue (Amazon) to the moistened broken surface. As shown below, I inserted the tightening screw and placed the tripod adapter on top to keep everything in place while the glue dried.

I’ve been really impressed with this type of adhesive, and the bond has yet to break after several uses. Edit: The pivot was intact when I originally wrote this, but after the GoPro Ladder toss experiment, it finally decided to crack again. I’m guessing things would have been harder if both polycarbonate pivots had broken, but since it was only one, this method worked quite nicely.

Incidentally, if you weren’t convinced, this make a good case for the Floaty Back Door during marine use, since if your pivots break, most of the time your attachment is toast.

Steps:
1) match up the broken prong to the housing
2) use the sharpie to mark 2 or 3 lines on both the housing and broken prong along the crack as drill guidelines. I marked two lines on one side of the screw hole and one on the other.
3) securely clamp the prong and make sure it’s level. You don’t want it moving.
4) slowly drill into the prong along the guidelines
5) repeat 3 & 4 for the housing
6) re-piece the prong with the housing to make sure they line up. You may have to do some milliing with the press.
7) cut the paperclip to size so the pieces fit in the holes when the housing and prong are pieces together.
8) take everything apart again
9) mix the epoxy and jam it in all of the holes. I used a flathead screw driver to “rub” it in.
10) coat the paperclip pieces with epoxy as well
11) out it all back together, clamp it solid and remove ALL excess epoxy. Excess will lead to a lot of attempted sanding work between the pivot prongs.
12) after it sets and dries for about an hour, carefully work an accessory fitting into the housing until the holes line up. Do this a few times to rub away any reminant epoxy.
13) go film cool stuff again